“I was in three years, one month and 11 days,” said William C. “Bill” Wade of Massillon of the duration of his service to his country during World War II.

“I got a disease they called jungle rot on my hands and feet,” said Wade, who had spent a year guarding a hospital on an island in the Pacific before his illness forced him home. “I remember that I was one week out of San Francisco, on a hospital ship, when we heard the Germans had surrendered.”

ENTERING SERVICE

Wade, who was raised in Cambridge and had come to Canton to work at Timken Roller Bearing Co. in 1940, was drafted into the Army. His brother, the late Ralph Wade, served in the Navy, also in the Pacific.

Stationed at an Army Hospital on Biak, northwest of New Guinea, Wade patrolled the hospital and provided security for the patients who were brought there.

“This hospital, it was set out in a jungle,” he recalled. “They had a section filled with nurses and a section filed with doctors and they had us in another section. It was good duty. We felt like we did something.”

While the enemy didn’t routinely attack the hospital, Wade said, there was one incident where combat came close to those who already were recovering from it.

“We did have one bombing,” he said, his face turning somber. “A Japanese plane got through and dropped a few bombs. I saw some go out with tags on their big toes. It makes you feel bad. It makes you think of where you are and how anything can happen.”

HEADING HOME

Wade was being shipped home in May of 1945 when the war in Europe ended. He was discharged in September of that year.

He returned to his job at Timken, where he worked for several years.

“Then I got into plastering and I did that for I don’t know how many years,” he said. “After that I got myself a job at Hoover Co, and that’s where I retired.”

He raised three children — daughters Nancy Phillips, Susan DePasquale, and Gloria Price. Twenty years ago he met the woman who would become his companion in these later years, Alice Smith.

In his retirement years, he continued many of the activities that had filled his leisure life. He bowled, went fishing, worked in his yard. He often spends time with grandchildren.

Memories of the war “crop up from time to time,” but mostly they are reminders from others who see the “World War II Veteran” hat frequently wears.

“We were eating in a restaurant the other day and this young woman saw the hat, came up, and said, ‘thank you,’” explained Smith. “She kind of teared up and said ‘my grandfather served in World War II.’ She was so sweet.”